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Anybody Here? ...
Nobody? ...
Well, alright then:
A large study from all of Sweden has found that increasing people's incomes randomly (actually, increasing their wealth, but you can convert wealth to income via an interest rate very easily) does not reduce their criminality. The authors find that via a cross sectional model, people with higher incomes are less likely to commit crimes (this just compares rich people to poors and sees rich people are less criminal), while when they switch to a "shock" model where people who won what is effectively a lottery don't see reduced criminality in either themselves or their children. This is a pretty big blow for the "poor people are more criminal because they don't have money for their basic needs" theory.
Original study here: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w31962/w31962.pdf
Marginal Revolution post discussing this here (also reproduced below, post has an additional graph at the end on the link): https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/12/why-do-wealthier-people-commit-less-crime.html
New but not surprising. People involved in retail theft prevention have known this forever. There is no reliable profile for a potential shoplifter. It can be anyone.
Some people have kleptomania. Winona Ryder was caught shoplifting, I don't think she would do armed robbery or carjacking.
Mm. Human beings are moral scavengers and opportunists far more then they are corrupted by some criminal pathology. The amount of well adjusted human beings in regular good conduct that come out of the woodworks when the wrong incentives align, are numerous beyond belief. However if the costs are high enough and the opportunities aren't there, you simply don't see it. The only human beings who have consistent principles are those you'd never want to live with or be governed by. Only at the extremes of human behavior do you see moral principles at work.
I'll second SophisticatedHillbilly that this is the opposite of my experience. At least, out of all the people that I know somewhat well and would not want to live with or be governed by, every single one of them has demonstrated a lack of consistent principles - and, in fact, it's that lack of consistent principles that has largely translated to them being terrible to live with or to be governed by. On the other hand, the few people in my life who have demonstrated having somewhat consistent principles have tended to be more worth living with or being governed by compared to a random person. Often for reasons directly having to do with being principled.
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